


Titan Sixth Form

by Amzzz358



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 01:04:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5110781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amzzz358/pseuds/Amzzz358
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You see what I did there? If I was American it'd be "Titan High" but I'm not, and that means I can pretend that I didn't just make the title up three seconds ago.<br/>Honestly, I'm just stringing a series of made up scenes with life events together with these characters to make what will hopefully become a coherent story. If you need a dosage mid school snk babies then maybe this is the fanfic for you. Maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is pretty much a love letter to my a-level/college days combined with a need to mess around with these characters. Honestly I make no promises for this, it’s just a sort of practice run before I move onto another AU that I won’t explain lest it never get made, but that I really, really want to work on. I’d like to complete this, but I don’t have much practice in putting writing OUT THERE so bear with me and my potentially poor deadline skills.  
> I won’t sit here and explain the education system of England because I don’t want to patronise anyone/it’s been a few years, there have been many changes made already and (due to the fact that I like everyone else try to avoid thinking about my school days wherever possible) I have forgotten many, many of the details. But if you are completely bamboozled by your confusion please let me know and I’ll try to help/edit where appropriate.  
> Disclaimer, I did not take most of these A-levels. Marco is taking the ones I should have taken, which probably reveals interesting information about my psyche, and Eren is going to have about the same character development that I had before heading off for uni. I don’t know what that says, I- I really don’t think I’m anything like Eren. But then my mother was never eaten by a giant cannibal.

It was just after half one on a Tuesday afternoon, and Marco Bott had no idea whether he was terrified of his history a-level teacher or whether this new teacher just had a twisted sense of humour he had yet to adjust to. Technically it was only just his- and his years- first day of A-level, with the previous Monday having been spent in form groups receiving timetables and maps and filling out various forms. Tuesday had been far more interesting so far, meeting a few of the students who had joined for the sixth form and were new to the school in Spanish and receiving his first art project of the year that morning. He was pretty excited for that, they’d had a look through some sketchbooks from last year and he had some ideas for artists and research to get through so he could dra-

  
_THWACK._

  
A ruler was slapped down on a table at the front of the classroom, cutting through the mumbling of students and narrowly avoiding shaving several layers of skin from where Eren Jaeger’s forehead was lying close to the surface of the desk. Or had been, Eren having jumped sky high as soon as the ruler had landed, much like the rest of the history class. Next to Marco, who had far wider eyes and a much straighter back a moment before, Connie narrowly avoided flopping off of his chair in shock.  
Terrifying was probably the fairer judgement.

  
At his desk Eren muttered to himself about inappropriate teacher-student conduct, prompting a hiss from the short dark haired man who would be tutoring them in history for the year letting him know that if he wished to spend his lunch running after a ball just so he could sweat all over the clean classroom, he could at least have the dignity to not fall asleep before that class had even begun.

  
Without even sparing a glance at the rest of his students the teacher moved from insulting Eren to dropping a neat pile of textbooks onto the desk of a sour faced blonde girl with a _thud_ loud enough the rival the noise previously made by the unholy joining of ruler and desk. Marco hadn’t seen the blonde girl at the school before but her glare was currently rivalling that of their teacher, who was requesting she pass the textbooks out. She relented after a span of time that was long enough for the class to sit in awkward silence wondering if she wouldn’t, slouching out of her seat with the heavy bundle, and the dark haired man moved to the board to flick a few words over it.

  
“Likely you’ll all just end up calling me Levi,” the teacher drawled after scrawling the words ‘Mr Ackermann’ across the board in fresh marker, returning it with the rest of his set once he was done. “Particularly as you have the joy of sharing a class with Eren Jaeger over here, who has never been one for upholding decent manners.”

Eren’s only response was to tremble out the words “You literally just tried to skin me with a writing utensil.”

  
Levi chose not to hear that remark, moving instead to begin explaining the curriculum for their year, not waiting for the sour faced girl to finish handing out the books. Marco tried to smile thanks at her when she reached his table, but the intense look he received in return made him a little more than uncomfortable and he ended up turning away quickly. He ended up picking up an extra book for Connie too, the boy still recovering from the ruler-related abuse.

A short groan, which probably would have been louder had there not been a ruler so close to Levi’s possession, went through the classroom as Levi announced the existence of a prewritten seating plan, no one having time to voice any complaints before he began ordering each student to their new desk. “Ackermann, you’re with Braus.” Marco barely had time to register the realisation that his friend Mikasa shared the surname of their teacher before Eren began spluttering at the announcement.

“Sir that’s not _fair_ , I ALWAYS work with Mikasa, we live together and-”

  
“Jaeger, shut it. It’s your first day of sixth form and I’ve been instructed to force you all to interact and make new friends. It’s this or _circle time_.” There was a ripple through the classroom as everyone collectively shuddered, possibly even including Levi, who attempted to cut through Eren’s whining and continue reading out his list with what could only be described as commendable effort.

  
“Marco, you’re with Kirschtein.” Marco blinked at the sound of his name, opening his mouth but not finding anything to say. Eren was still speaking, and Levi had already moved onto the next set of couples in an attempt to drown out the other teenager. Marco panicked to himself a little as he looked around the classroom, not remembering hearing a “Kirschtein” being read out on the register. He considered waiting for Levi to finish running through his list and see who was left at the end, but then everyone would know that he hadn’t paid attention and think he was stupid. And also Levi had broken the pattern of his list to bicker with Eren, who was determined to win a desk partner from the increasingly angered teacher that would guarantee him as good a grade as Mikasa could, offering his appeasement if he could work with Armin. Also, Connie’s partner had moved across the classroom to take Marco’s place, and he was very tall, and very built, and very scary looking, and very blonde. And he was also clapping Marco’s shoulder with a smile and calling him bro as he apologised for taking his seat and maybe Marco shouldn’t judge people so quickly but that didn’t change the fact that he still had no clue who he was working with and now he didn’t even have the defence of his chair and table, he was just suspended in the classroom and then all of a sudden his eyes met with a boy on the other side of the classroom staring him down as though he was waiting for him and suddenly the name Jean Kirschtein hit him from hearing the register and he felt a little bit foolish.

  
The stranger raised his eyebrows, only making Marco feel more foolish, and he hoped the redness of his cheeks would die down by the time he trudged his bag and coat across the classroom with him.

  
“What an asshole,” was the first thing Jean said to him as he approached the table, stopping Marco’s heart for a second before he realised that the other boy’s attention had been caught once more by arguing still going on at the front of the classroom. It wasn’t a question, or a conversation starter, he just said it. He didn’t even seem annoyed or irritated- he was more amused, if anything.

  
“Um…. Eren or Levi?”

  
“Ha! Both.” Jean pushed back on his chair, swinging from the back legs and flashing Marco a sharp toothed grin, looking pleasantly surprised at Marco’s response. “You are that Marco guy, right, you’ve not just wandered over here have you?”

  
“Um, yeah. Was it Jean?” Jean nodded, correcting his pronunciation a little which did nothing to help dispel the red in his cheeks, but he took Jean’s hand when offered and made an attempt at normal conversation like he wasn’t embarrassing himself “Eren can be a bit…. Loud, if you’re not used to him.”

  
“Mmm, I know him actually.”

  
“Oh.”

  
“Yeah, from like a sports thing when we were kids. Don’t know the short guy though.” Jean was still swinging off the back of his chair, Marco biting down the urge to warn him of falling and cracking his head open, shrugging as he spoke.

  
“Well, probably all I need to tell you is do not call him short.” Levi only taught for the sixth form at this school, but horror stories about him made it through each year group to all of the students at the school.

  
“Ten points to Marco,” their teacher looked up from the textbook he had pinned to the table, the look on his face making both boys pale as Jean returned his chair to four legs with a soft _thunk_. “Minus three to Kirschtein.”

  
Marco was pretty sure he could hear the freckled girl in front of them muttering the first two rules of fight club to herself.

  
“Um, that’s not like, coursework points he’s deducting, right?” Jean muttered after a few beats of silence.

  
Marco pulled a face. “Honestly, I have no clue.”

  
Jean’s face did something akin to an eye twitch as he turned his attention to the textbook, gesturing for Marco to look as well. They spent the rest of the lesson mostly in silence, exchanging a few friendly words whenever Levi wasn’t reading out information or instructing the students on how the year would play out and the topics they’d cover. The two hour session passed by surprisingly quickly, despite the last hour being spent answering questions from the textbook while Levi intensely ignored Eren throwing things at his sister, now across the classroom near where Marco had previously been sat, blanking him almost as well as she was.

  
The bell rang potentially seconds before Levi’s patience ran out and another shouting match began, but Marco saw Mikasa dragging Eren out by his ear as he stood to repack his bag, Armin hurrying behind looking a little worried. The sound of the bell ringing at the end of the day still lifted Marco’s spirits despite the amount of time he’d been going to the school and he smiled widely at Jean when the other moved to leave with a quick bye and a short wave as they agreed they’d see each other in the next lesson.

 

 

The first few weeks ended up being a bit of a blur of names, information and trying to find justification to avoid the workload that was quickly piling up. Working at a cafe close to the school wasn’t helping much, taking up his limited free time and leaving him a little more exhausted in what free time he had left. He began sacrificing more and more of his lunchtimes and free periods to the art department, staying in with a few other people in his class to stress about how much work they were expected to complete. The older students were kind enough to inform them where the quiet places to go if they were having a breakdown were, which was less encouraging than they had maybe intended it to be.

  
He passed Jean around the school from time to time, in between their few classes together. He didn’t know if they were good enough friends to stop and chat yet but he always made sure to smile or wave at least. He could never tell if Jean looked as stressed as the rest of his peers, or if he just maintained a permanent look of irritation over his face, but he seemed pleased enough to see Marco when they crossed each other’s paths from time to time. He came across as a decent guy, despite what Eren had to say. What Eren _often_ had to say.

  
“Eren, you have to let Marco make up his own mind about Jean, _without_ you constantly complaining about him,” Mikasa chastised one lunch time spent in the common room after a history lesson that left Eren ranting about Jean and his “stupid face” for possibly the fifth time. Marco was beginning to lose count.

  
Armin arrived, sitting with them and pulling a neatly packed lunch from his bag. “Eren doesn’t like Jean because he asked Mikasa out when we were younger,” he explained. Mikasa very nearly maintained her composure, but her eyes betrayed her at the last second, flicking into a quick roll.

  
“I don’t _dislike_ him,” Eren countered “he’s just…. _Hmpf_.” Eren finished the line with a frustrated sigh.

  
“They have conflicting personalities,” Armin summarised cheerfully, biting into a sandwich and steering the conversation near masterfully onto a new topic. What was that supposed to mean? Conflicting personalities? The tense nature Eren displayed towards Jean looked a little more deep set than a disagreement over Jean having wanted to date his sister. Marco thought back to the brief conversation he’d had with Jean about Eren in their first class, there hadn’t really been any tell tale signs of the two being enemies, just that they’d known each other. Although, Jean had referred to Eren as an “asshole”, but Jean came across as the type of guy to call anyone an asshole. He’d probably call Marco an asshole if given the chance, and they’d only just met.

  
Marco didn’t think he would though, Jean seemed to enjoy his company well enough, often sharing any funny or strange stories he had from his other lessons and time at home. His dry sense of humour was starting to grow on Marco and once he started to get used to his outright nature he began to understand and take less offence from Jean’s odd snarks and comments. Truth be told Marco was actually pretty glad that they were sitting with each other. His old desk partner, Connie, didn’t seem to mind Marco’s absence, he was sat with one of the newer guys, Reiner, but spent most of the lessons tugging at Sasha’s ponytail until Mikasa quietly told them both off. You could always tell when it was happening because Reiner apparently found it hilarious, his booming laugh sounding across the classroom every single time.

  
Queued up outside of their history classroom on a Tuesday afternoon once again waiting for the start of their double period, Marco was approached by a petite blonde, impeccably dressed and all but obscured by the amount of textbooks she would carry around on a daily basis. He smiled down at Christa as they stood together by the classroom door a taller girl hovering awkwardly behind her shoulder. Christa paused in her conversation with Marco to greet the girl in her kind manner, receiving a half smile in return. The girl looked as though she didn’t know whether to offer to help Christa with her books or to act like she hadn’t noticed. From the look on her face her mind wasn’t made up by Marco taking half of the pile away from the small girl.

  
“Thanks Marco,” through his focus was on moving the books into a well balanced position on his hip, he could hear the smile in her voice. “I was just wondering, have you finished that Spanish essay for tomorrow? I’ve been absolutely _swamped_ this week, I just haven’t had time,” Marco didn’t doubt that, if Christa said she didn’t have time it meant she really didn’t. Other than having opted for an extra A-level over of the usual four she was a student rep for their year, with a whole host of volunteering and extracurricular activities taking up any spare time she did have left over.

  
“I did yeah, you wanna see?” Christa nodded gratefully, telling him that she just needed to get an idea of what to write, though Marco wanted to insist that she save herself some time and just rewrite what he had. He could already hear the denial of his request on her tongue however, and just continued to shift the books around his waist to shuffle through his bag one handed.

  
“Need a hand?” Jean’s voice from just behind his head made him jump, almost throwing the pile of textbooks from his hip. Jean smirked at the motion with raised eyebrows, helping steady the books from their decent with a languid motion of his arm. Marco couldn’t help but grin back a little, feeling foolish at the slight over reaction but still refusing Christa’s offer to return the books.

  
“Um, thanks,” he softly laughed, hoping it didn’t come across shaky, regaining control of the books again and asking Jean if he wouldn’t mind pulling out a green notepad from his bag. The pad in question was passed over to Christa who tried to insist she only take the essay but was eventually convinced to take the whole thing and return it at the start of their lesson the following day.

  
“You take Spanish?” Marco, still self-conscious about nearly dropping everything, blinked at Jean’s question for a second before managing to remember to form a reply.

“Yeah. Or um, _si_ , if you prefer,” his already reddening cheeks darkened in colour a little more from the pedantic joke, but his comfort returned a little with the corners of Jean’s mouth turning up. Jean’s response was a little off hand, hands pushed into his pockets as he pushed against the wall behind him and looked cooler than anyone who wore a sweater to school had any right to.

  
“That’s cool. I could never get Spanish, my mum’s German so I can’t really do the latin-base thing.”

  
“Do you speak german- Seriously? Like, fluent?” Marco struggled to keep his exclamation calm as Jean nodded a confirmation of his fluency. “That’s so cool, I’d love to be fluent in another language.” It was probably the generic response that Jean heard every time he mentioned his nationality to anyone, but Marco couldn’t but be a little excited.

  
“Figured taking it at a-level would kind of be cheating though.”

  
“What are you taking?” He asked after a quick laugh, deciding to change the topic before he began figuratively poking Jean with a stick and demanding that German was spoken.

  
“Oh, um, Maths, this,” he nodded towards their classroom door “Physics and chemistry.”

  
Marco couldn’t help but pull a face. “Oh my god, so much science.”

  
“Not a fan?” Jean must have had this conversation with everyone he’d met so far at he school, but he grinned at the pained expression on Marco’s face.

  
“Science is cool, but not enough to like, _study_. And maths, oh my god. No thank you.”

  
Jean shrugged, arms crossed with the casual grin still in place. “I wanna go for medicine, so not much choice really.”

  
Marco probably would have made another light hearted “oh my god, _learning_ ” comment at that, perhaps even with a little chuckle in place, but at that moment he was interrupted by Eren Jaeger talking loudly over the start of his sentence.

  
“He’s got mummy and daddy to pay for a degree so he can live a nice cushioned life as a GP working three days a week,” Eren spoke in a lighthearted tone, but there was definitely something cutting hidden behind it enough to make Marco uncomfortable.

  
Jean didn’t turn around at first as though he was trying to avoid becoming involved in the conversation. “Oh my god Eren, I was like 12 when I said that.”

  
“You were 14, and its not like you’ve changed your fucking mind.”

  
Jean’s voice was calm, but from where Marco was stood he could see his hands shaking a little “It’s none of your business what I do with my life.”

  
“Med school is hard, being a doctor is a fucking life commitment. Some of us are putting in a fuck-tonne of effort so we can actually _help_ people.” Eren wasn’t making any attempt to sound lighthearted anymore, moving towards Jean as he harshly ranted, Mikasa and Armin watching tightly from a little distance away.

  
“Eren, fucking drop it.”

  
“You think you’re entitled to it just because you went to private school,” Eren muttered as he turned away, clearly aware of Armin and Mikasa watching him and not wanting to be scolded. “But look how well that went.”

  
Jean sighed as though willing himself to keep his composure before something in him seemed to snap and his arm swung round suddenly into his target. Marco heard the noise of collision before he felt the pain of it, only realising his body had moved in the way when he was stumbling back from the impact into the wall, slipping down to the floor into a cushion of the textbooks that had gone flying as people crowded around him. They were making exclamations and asking him questions and he was trying to push through them to find Jean but that was difficult when one of his hands had to cling to his _face, oh my god that fucking hurts, Jesus Christ my_ cheekbone _, why did I think that was a good idea?_

  
He managed to catch sight of Jean, looking pale and possibly terrified before turning and running away rapidly, Marco managing to mutter a “Jean-” before the dull flashes of colour dotting through his vision made him too dizzy to do much more than lean back and think about the amount of pain his eye socket was putting him through.

  
He couldn’t remember much about being moved to the nurse’s office, but apparently he had been because he found himself sat on a line of chairs outside of the door to the little medical room still clinging to the right side of his face, along with a boy clearly attempting to fake illness to miss a test and a girl who had thrown herself on a wall and landed on her shin, bleeding from her leg over the floor with a calm expression. He took the moment of quiet as a chance to distinguish the remains of the flurry of people who had crowded him in the hallway, most of them having disappeared into the classroom as the bell rang, likely prompted by Levi. It wasn’t long before the boy sat by Marco was disposed of and the girl was gingerly lead into the office by the nurse, who stopped to eye Sasha and Christa, still fussing over Marco.  
“You don’t need to be here,” the nurse spoke curtly to the girls “unless you want to mop that up.” A gesture was flicked down to the small pool of blood and Marco felt his head spin at the sight of it. Sasha made an expression of defeat and trailed back in the direction of their classroom under the scrutinising eye of the nurse, muttering that she’d see them later. Christa instead pulled out a cuddle of tissues from one of the many pockets of her school bag and did indeed begin to mop up the blood on the floor, earning a softened look from the nurse who reasoned with a glance back to the bleeding girl in the office that it could be a while before Marco was seen and Christa may as well stay with him.

  
Leaning forward to prop his head in his arms, Marco glanced down to his friend cleaning away on the floor. “Christa, you may be too good for this world,” he spoke into his hands with a smile he knew she would return as she disposed of the soiled paper towel and joined him, tucking her skirt under her as she sat.  
“You sound like Ymir, we’ve only just met but she keeps telling me to stop being so nice to her.”

  
“I don’t think I know a Ymir,” Marco tilted his head slightly, only to prompt a headache to roll in position and corrected his movement, mentally noting that he could now no longer move if he wanted to survive this ordeal.

  
“She sits next to me in history, in front of Jean,” Christa offered and Marco’s mind jumped to the girl in the corridor and placing her as Christa’s desk mate.

  
“Oh, freckles?”

  
“You got it, another thing you have in common.”

  
“Well there you go, insult her freckles. She won’t think you’re so nice then.”

  
Christa laughed softly into her hand, but her response was sincere. “Aw, no I couldn’t do that. She’ll just have to stay annoyed at me.”

  
“I don’t think anyone could be annoyed at you Christa. I can set Jean on her if she is though. It’s a tried and tested technique,” he gestured to the right side of his face with a chuckle and as little movement as possible, hoping the likely unavoidable bruising didn’t pull his expression into too much of a grimace. “Plus I’m pretty sure he owes me a favour or two for this.”

  
“Actually, she got into a fight _for_ me the other day. You know those older guys who kept trying to talk to me last year?” Marco nodded. Their group of friends had noticed the group of boys from the year above who were prone to following Christa around the school for the last year or so, calling at her unpleasantly and trying to catch her attention despite the times she’d politely asked them to leave her be.

  
“Huh. Maybe we could get Ymir and Jean to battle it out together,” Marco wondered to himself, unsure whether it was him or the head injury speaking. Eager to avoid being left to focus on the pain slowly taking over his face, he continued to prompt her story. “That’s good though, that was those year thirteen boys, right?”

  
She nodded, quick to pick up on Marco needing a distraction. “Yeah, she didn’t know that though. I mean obviously she wouldn’t have. She just said she thought they were being dicks. I don’t know if that means we’re friends or anything, but how could I be mean to her after she’s done that? She didn’t even ask, she just punched him in the face,” she seemed to be stifling a laugh. Marco had heard of a fight going on in the sixth form area, but had been working in the art department, missing out on most of the details. “I told her about them afterwards though, she said I should’ve hit them instead of her. She made me promise I would if it happened again,” Christa’s expression pulled into something close to sour, and she shook her head disapprovingly, but Marco could see hints of her earlier laugh still tinting her features.

“She didn’t get suspended or anything?”

  
“Oh no, I explained what happened,” Marco nodded at that. Along with being student rep, Christa’s adoptive parents were governors at the school, which likely gave her side of the story a little more weight. “I don’t think I can pull it for Jean though, sorry!”

  
“Oh no- that’s….” Marco trailed off, not having thought of what would happen to Jean until then. He’d looked panicked as he’d quite literally run off, presumably to his own home but really Marco didn’t have any guarantee of that. He made a mental note to Facebook Jean or something to let him know that it was somewhat Marco’s own fault his face likely now resembled a blueberry.

  
His concerned thoughts and light conversation with Christa were soon cut short by the door to the office swinging open, the nurse appearing in the door frame and calling him in. He stepped in, only to find himself seated once again on a chair in the corner of the office as the nurse trailed around the small room, picking out all the ingredients for an ice bag and quizzing him on topics that he reasoned were likely to discern whether he had a concussion or not. The injured child he’d previously been sat with was perched on a bed of sorts now, leg covered in bandaging, on the phone to what Marco was assuming was one of her parents. “Yeah. Yeah I’ve scratched my leg. They want me to go into hospital,” Marco didn’t have time to consider telling her that anything capable of spilling that much blood could not scientifically be classed as a scratch before a bag of ice was roughly shoved into his face by the nurse. He clutched at it quickly so as not to drop it as he was told that a concussion was unlikely, and informing him that being in sixth form it was his choice whether he wanted to go home or back to class, and though he was recommended the former he decided against it. He already had enough work piled up, and had a feeling that Levi would consider his face not a worthy enough injury to avoid class.

  
He trailed back up to the top floor with Christa, ice bag in hand, taking the opportunity to ride the school’s single elevator up to the top floor. They found that sneaking into the class was easier than they had anticipated thanks to the blazing row going on between Levi and Eren that they walked straight into. Eren was apparently still in a bad mood from his battle with Jean, and had just discovered his punishment for the fight was that Armin, who had been won as his desk partner for the year, had been swapped out with the sour faced blonde who’d been briefly responsible for their textbooks in the first lesson.

  
Christa and Marco attempted to duck unnoticed into their seats and not get dragged into the fight. The girl sat next to Christa, Ymir, span round as Marco sat, commenting cheerily that he looked like he’d been through the wars, but something under the joy directed at the act of another human being in pain sounded like she was concerned for him. He smiled his usual polite smile and responded “I’d like to say I’ve been through worse,” Ymir chuckled at this as though she was satisfied with his response, and he added a quick “it’s not so bad anymore, I can’t really feel it now that I’ve got the ice,” knowing that Christa would be worrying still.

  
“Can I poke it?” Christa spun around, a horrified look in her eye at Ymir’s question, but Marco barely had time to mutter an “um” or form a decision on the matter before Levi spoke up in a dark voice, informing them that if Marco could retain consciousness in his current injured state then could they all _please_ get back to focussing on the text?

  
The two hour session was mostly for Marco spent melting the ice pressed to his face and attempting to concentrate on the words in front of him and failing miserably. He gave up after a little less than an hour, considering that perhaps he should’ve agreed with the nurse and gone home. Christa soon noticed his struggling and began passing her notes back to Marco to copy as she was making them, earning her a friendly-ish eye roll from Ymir, but a grateful smile from Marco. He managed to make it through the lesson by just copying whatever seemed important, making himself promise to review whatever jargon he was jotting down whenever his head was working again. A group of his friends waited for him once the lesson ended to walk home- not wanting him to collapse on his way back and ruin the other side of his face and end up a full bruise, as Connie put it- but he asked for them to wait a moment as he wandered over to Levi’s desk to request an extra copy of their homework for Jean. The strange look that crossed Levi’s features made him realise that Levi had likely witnessed the event of Marco nearly having his cheekbone fractured, along with the fact that he’d enforced punishment onto Eren.

  
“He punched you in the face and you’re bringing him his homework. If you were a girl I’d have to warn you about the signs of abusive relationships.” Marco shrugged at what he was taking as the teacher’s bizarre sense of humour, seeing as he’d been handed the necessary sheets as the teacher had been talking.

  
“He was aiming for Eren.” Was all he said in defence. Levi gave a sharp burst of laughter.

“Excellent, remind me to give him an A for something.”

 

 

The walk home from school had taken longer than it usually would, mostly thanks to Sasha stopping him every three minutes of so to ask if he needed to sit down. Ymir had walked back with them too, despite living in the opposite direction to the neighbourhood Connie, Sasha, he and Christa had grown up in, as she and Christa had agreed to study together that evening, and Marco took the opportunity to try and get to know her a little better in between impromptu nursing sessions from Sasha as they walked.

  
As such, he got home after his mother returned work, and had attempted to sneak away to his room before she got the chance to see his face. It was a silly idea really, even if he had made it upstairs before she came out to greet him the swelling wasn’t exactly about to disappear overnight. He’d not yet had the chance to check a mirror, but the tightness of his face whenever he changed expression and the looks his friends had been giving him were enough to tell him that already the injury was very much visible. Maybe he was planning to try and steal some makeup left behind by his older sister when she left for uni, but he hadn’t really even considered how his freckles would factor into that. But, either way, his mother had caught him on the stairs and it didn’t take long for her to notice him attempting to communicate with only one side of his face looking at her. As he’d suspected she would, she blew up the second she laid eyes on his cheek, wanting to know the exact details of what had happened but not really listening to anything he was telling her beyond “I got punched in the face”.

  
Not wanting to get Jean into any more trouble he’d attempted to stay quiet on the topic of the name of who’d hit him, which just lead his mother to thinking that he was too scared to reveal it. Eventually he let the name out, once she’d verbally wrestled with him for a good five minutes to the point of convincing herself that Marco was being threatened into silence by a group of thugs who she had to now defend her baby from. The next thing he knew she was on the phone to Christa, Marco still insisting from the counter where she’d forced various frozen foods onto him that it was all an accident, demanding information on Jean Kirschtein’s home address. Christa, bless her, had attempted to throw his mother off the trail, insisting that she couldn’t give out information on any student’s records, but that the school would handle what had happened. She accidentally let slip that the Kirschteins and the Jaegers knew each other however, and Marco was pretty sure his mother had already phoned the Jaeger homeline before saying good bye to Christa. Thank god it was at least Grisha and not Eren who picked up, his mother didn’t need any more encouragement in the form of Eren and Jean’s dislike for each other.

  
By the time they were walking out of the house, car keys in his mothers hand and a bag of frozen peas in Marco’s, she had decided that Jean Kirschtein was the root of all evil. He gave up trying to change her mind halfway through the drive, knowing perfectly well how she defensive she could get when the safety of her children was compromised, and instead focused on controlling his growing nerves as they drove through what he recognised as Armin, Eren and Mikasa’s end of town. That made sense, both Jean and the group had mentioned that they’d known each other as children.

  
Jean’s house was pretty big, bigger than his family’s home, anyway. Marco was just about ready to throw up with nerves at what his mother would say, the embarrassment of his _mother_ defending his sixteen year old honour suddenly hitting him as they got to the door but it was too late, she’d already knocked and there was no way he could escape now, unless he ran away and hid in the car and never acknowledged Jean again. Surely Levi would let him swap partners in history. He could work with Eren. Then Eren would stop complaining about blondie, and Jean would definitely never want to talk to him ever again, everybody won. He was about to duck away to his escape when his mother gripped at his shoulder, holding him in place and  _knowing_ he’d been about to run away, and he didn’t even have time to beg before the door swung open to reveal Jean’s mother.

  
Although she could have been anyone really, she didn’t exactly introduce herself as the second her eyes landed on the right of Marco’s face she gave a short sigh and welcomed the pair in. She invited them to sit down in the living room without asking who they were, instead moving back to the hall to cry Jean’s name loudly enough to make his mother jump, a germanic tint spilling into her pronunciation. At least they were at the right house and his mother wasn’t about to accost some stranger’s child, though the look on her face at the Germanic stream of conversation that could be heard from the stairway between what sounded like Jean and his mother gave away the possibility that even she was losing her resolve a little.

  
Marco felt a little strange at the sound of Jean’s voice, germanic and muffled by stairs as it was, not sure he was entirely prepared to face what was technically his assailant so soon. Jean obviously hadn’t wanted to face him, what with the speed he’d run away from the situation. The nerves that had begun to fade in the comfort of the sofa he was tucked into hastily relit themselves at the sound of a teenager stomping down the stairs.

  
Mrs Kirschtein re-entered the living room with Jean in tow, practically pulling him in by the ear, reminding Marco very much of the situation he was in with his own mother. As soon as Jean was in full view Marco was torn between not being able to face him and not being able to look away. The whole situation was far too awkward. Luckily their mothers took the full opportunity to do the talking, Mrs Kirschtein breaking the silence and gesturing about the room towards her guests before they could begin.

  
“What’s this?” She pointed straight at the bag of peas Marco had attached to his head. “You told us you were fighting with the Jaeger boy again.”

  
“Oh we weren’t fighting, it was just-”

  
“Marco please, let me take care of this. Mrs keer-schtein,” Marco had no control over the wince that took over his face at his mother’s over pronunciation of the surname, particularly as most of it was pain from his bruising but at least he could say that his mother was embarrassing him to the point of physical pain. “My son informs me that your son caused this injury, and a quick inspection informs me that your son is not injured himself. From this, I think we can assume that there wasn’t so much a fight as your son attacking my son,” _that was it_ , Marco thought to himself. T _hat was the line that caused my premature death. I am dead. I have died of embarrassment._

  
No sooner had his mother stopped speaking when the Germanic flurry of conversation began again, mostly directed towards Jean than from him. Marco didn’t catch the single word that Jean shot back at her but he recognised the frustration of his tone to know it was a variation of the word “ _mum_ ”. He wondered how long it would be before his own mother became uncomfortable enough to make an attempt to rely on her shaky Italian. Marco could feel her tense as Mrs Kirschtein cut her reprimands short and returned her attention to the two Botts sat on her sofa.

  
“I’m sure, Mrs….? Bott, that you aren’t used to this. But you must know that this is not the first time my son has been in this…. Situation,” Marco dared to flick his eyes up for a second and managed to catch Jean muttering the words “oh my God“ to himself. “This isn’t the first time this has happened, we are trying to work through it with him, but he’s…. _Stubborn_.”

  
“Right, yes,” if nothing else, Marco was amused by his mother’s reactions. The sudden bursts of German were really throwing her off. He’d have to try it the next time he was caught stealing biscuits from the kitchen.

  
“I didn’t mean to-” Jean cut himself off, looking very much like he didn’t know how to finish what he wanted to say and avoiding Marco’s eyes.  
The conversation between their mothers continued, flowing from concerned into a near argument, onto what was very worryingly almost an emotional breakdown on the topic of motherhood and it’s hardships. Jean and Marco stayed completely silent through the whole ordeal, faces focused in on the floor as they steadily grew redder and redder. Before long Jean scurried away back up the stairs without so much as a backwards glance at Marco, who could feel his heart sinking at the awkward situation they were still stuck in. It took him a good ten more minutes of listening to their mothers bond before he sucked up enough courage to excuse himself politely, grabbing the school bag he was still trailing around with him.

  
The staircase wasn’t big enough to feel threatening, but it was definitely noticeably wider than the staircases he was used to, and that was threatening in itself. He wondered up, thinking as he arrived at a landing with a series of doors that he probably should have requested information on which room in the house was occupied by Jean but fortunately there was a door sporting a little hand made sign informing Marco that it was Jean’s room and that he should keep out. He knocked, eyes trailing over the little sign, reasoning that now was probably not the day to inform Jean that he was blessed with little artistic talent as he waited quietly to be welcomed in. Jean still looked shocked when he recognised Marco standing in the doorway to his bedroom once he opened the door, and they stood awkwardly watching each other for a good few seconds before Marco forced himself to speak.

  
“I brought your homework. And…. I’m really sorry,” he offered. The surprise on Jean’s face wasn’t going anywhere, and Marco didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one.

  
“For _what_?” Jean all but hissed, cutting through the silence that had settled around the pair.

  
“M- my mum, she’s, y’know, currently yelling about you?”

  
Jean’s eyes narrowed as he watched Marco, pointing at his hands firmly as he emphasised his own point. “I literally punched you in the face today.” It was a very valid point, to be fair. Marco shrugged a little half heartedly, having not been able to find any resentment towards the other for his actions since it had happened.

  
“Oh, yeah. No, that’s cool.”

  
“What?” Jean elongated the A in his word a tad over dramatically, managing to make the whole word sound like a scoff. Marco was pretty certain he’d never seen so much confusion on a person’s face before.

  
“I mean like it’s cool now. It hurt earlier but I can’t even feel anything now. It’ll be fine in a few days,” Jean just held his stare at him.

  
“Marco you haven’t actually…. Looked into a mirror yet, have you?”

  
Marco shook his head “um, no. I just got home and found myself being….” He shot a look towards the stairs where he could still hear their parents conversing. “Escorted here.” Jean nodded stiffly, looking a little bemused still, and pointed him in the direction of what turned out to be the bathroom. He switched the light on and glanced at his reflection, the force of the double take he made at the sight of it making his neck twinge a little. Half of his face was purple. How had he missed that? He had been walking around half the day with what resembled a plum growing from his face and he hadn’t even noticed. And suddenly the pain that had faded over the day came flooding back all at once, making him yearn for the melted bag of peas he’d left with his mother down the stairs.

  
“Ohh,” was all he said as Jean appeared slowly behind his shoulder.

  
“Um, yeah.” Jean held his gaze in the reflection.

  
“That’s actually quite impressive really. You should be proud. Put a picture on your personal statement if you wa-” his blabbering was cut short by Jean giving out a frustrated groan, dropping his stare from the mirror and folding up his arms.

  
“Can you stop being so nice about this and be angry with me, please?”

  
“But I’m not angry with you,” Marco’s eyes were wide enough to counter Jean’s narrow gaze.

  
“I- but- what? Have you-” Jean forcefully grabbed his head by the ears, apparently considering himself out of any other option, and used them to steer Marco’s face back to the mirror “Look. Look at that shade of purple. Really, really look.”

  
“It certainly is purple,” Marco agreed, the amicable tone to his voice making Jean’s hands clamped to his head twitch. “Well, I mean it’s not like you meant to do it, did you?”

  
“We- _no_ , but,” Jean frowned to himself, searching for another argument and throwing up his arms near aggressively when he couldn’t, trailing back to his room before he could finish what he was trying to say. He left the door open, however, and Marco followed him after turning off the bathroom light, and rummaged about in his bag for the sheets that needed to be passed on. Jean took them tentatively.

  
“You’re very confused,” Marco stated in an attempt to prompt him.

  
“Look, I have punched a lot of people in the face, and not one of them has ever waved it off with “it’s cool dude”.”

  
“I never said dude.”

  
“Oh my- that is not the point.”

  
“Right, sorry for not being annoyed.”

  
“Do not apologise. Why are you apologising? What do you actually have to apologise about?” Jean began wondering around, ranting to himself a little. “You’re making me wish that I had hit Jaeger, at least he knows when shit’s his fault.”

  
“I dunno, I think it’s more his fault than yours that I’ve spent the day resembling various fruit. He was the one antagonising you.” Jean just blew out some air between his lips, throwing himself down on his bed.

  
“Has Eren at least been kicked out too?” his voice was muffled from the pillows he had surrounded himself with.

  
“Well, no, I mean he didn’t actually punch any one in the face so….” Marco sheepishly peered about the room, wondering if he was okay to sit. Jean made no move to offer him a seat anywhere, just looking up at Marco as he spoke. “But Levi made him work with Annie.”

  
“Which one’s Annie?” tentatively, Marco perched onto the end of Jean’s bed, still clinging to his school bag. Jean made no protest to his action, showing no concern other than following the motion with his eyes.

  
“The blonde girl, she sits at the front of the class. Kind of angry looking,” he offered at Jean’s confusion, his eyes clearing at the words.

  
“Oh I know,” he grinned suddenly. “I guess that kinda makes up enough-”

  
A sudden thought hit Marco. “Wait, they’re kicking you out?”

  
Jean’s grin slipped back into it’s displeased scowl. “Well, no. I’ve been suspended for a week. They rang my mum to tell her.”

  
“Oh,” Marco nodded “You know, I bet it’s just because you’re new, they wanna act big y’know?”

  
Jean shrugged, though from where he was laying on the bed it just kind of looked like an awkward jerk.

  
“I’ll keep bringing your history stuff over if you want?” Marco offered. Marco watched as Jean pushed himself up onto his knuckles, eyes narrowed as he regarded Marco. In a strange way, if you untwisted the scowl, he was quite pretty.

  
“Um, I guess, but-”

  
“Don’t tell me I’m being too nice.”

  
Jean opened his mouth at that, but shut it again with a dull clink of his teeth. “You are,” he grumbled, but his tone was relenting. If he’d stayed angry it probably would have been easy for Marco to let it go himself. There was something there, though, something in the way Jean’s tone faded away suggested he was just letting the topic drop to avoid talking about it. He shouldn’t mention it, whatever it was that was being covered. He’d probably already over stepped his boundaries by this point, and the two of them weren’t close enough yet to talk about anything personal. He should change the topic to something light hearted and superficial that Jean would like to speak about, something that might cheer them both a little. He should just drop it.

  
He blurted out the words that had been concerning him.

  
“Why are you so desperate for me to be angry at you?”

  
He almost expected Jean’s head to snap around, eyes on fire and glaring him to death, or at least to outside of his house and another history partner. Instead he just slowly turned to meet Marco’s eyes, considering the question, chewing his lip a little.

  
“I- I’m not, I just-” he trailed off, the uncomfortable look on his face making Marco backtrack rapidly, wanting to move to tell him they didn’t have to talk about it, but at the last second he flicked his eyes towards Marco’s purple half and returned to the conversation with more resolve. “I got into a lot of fights at my last school. Like, a _lot_. Like, they-kicked me-out-right-before-exams a lot.” Marco opened his mouth to respond, the need to comfort Jean building up as he spoke, but was silenced by a heavy sigh. “They let me sit the exams at least, but I’d been at home for like six months so I wasn’t anywhere near what I needed to stay there.” The next sigh was laced with frustration. “This new school was meant to be a clean slate, and you seemed pretty cool but then I went and hit you in the face and- I’m not mad at you, I’m mad and myself for fucking up okay? And also at Jaeger for calling me out on my bullshit but I’m always angry at Jaeger.”

  
“Jean, one punch doesn’t equate to fucking up your entire schooling career.” Jean thought he was cool. That was….

  
Cool.

  
“You don’t understand, I snapped, I- I couldn’t keep calm. I knew he was baiting me and I couldn’t just swallow it down like I said I would. Like I fucking _promised_ I would. And, sorry but, it’s probably a good thing I did hit you and not Jaeger, because he would’ve fought me, and I would’ve fought back.”

  
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” the words tumbled out of his mouth, softly, kindly. Jean turned his head away as though to make them slip off of him. “What did you get? For your exams I mean.”

  
It took Jean a moment to respond, and he seemed genuinely horrified at his own answer. “mostly B’s, a couple of A’s.”

  
Marco looked at him with a fixed stare. “Dude. You didn’t go to school for 6 months and you still got better grades than most people I know.”

  
“You just said ‘dude’.”

  
“I- oh. Yeah, yeah I did.”

  
“My parents must be so fucking disappointed in me,” he spoke gently, the will to fight lost from his voice.

  
“Do they want you to do medicine?”

  
“They never said it, but…. I wanna make them proud, y’know?”

  
Marco nodded, beginning to understand the situation a little better. “They won’t be disappointed. If they love you they’ll just want you to be happy, and your mum definitely, um, loves you,” there really wasn’t a not-awkward way to phrase that, he noted as it was spoken, thinking of the strange affection the German woman had displayed while bickering with her son.

  
Jean shifted, side eyeing him with a sudden cutting grin. “Says the guy who gets his mum to fight his battles.” The air had changed back again to the light hearted atmosphere that usually surrounded the two of them, and Marco felt okay to let their previous conversation die, at least for now.

  
“Well. I mean, you really don’t wanna fight my mum. She’d kick your butt.” Also, being implied to be a mother’s boy threw him off enough as he tried to stumble through something that somewhat resembled a comeback to forget what they’d been talking about.

  
“You’d rather fight _my_ mum?” Jean offered with raised eyebrows.

  
It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t jumped at the sound of more German being thrown up the stairs, his own mother calling his name shortly after. “Okay, you win this round of who’s-mother-is-scarier,” Was all he could think to say in defence of the amused expression on Jean’s face. He flicked his eyes down the stairs, wondering what state his mother would be in. “Um, I’ll see you in class,” he stood up from the bed, hovering over to the door awkwardly. “You know, when you’re back.”

  
“Marco,” Jean had jumped up and grabbed his arm, pulling him back towards the bedroom a little “I- I really am sorry.”

  
They chuckled a little until Marco’s mother called him again, both mothers eyeing the boys wearily as they walked down the stairs together, chatting in what was a far more friendly manner than the two women apparently had anticipated.

  
Jean smiled a little under his mother’s scrutiny, no doubt about to receive the same confused questioning that Marco was going to be given in the car ride home. “I’ll see you next week, Marco.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT WAS ME, I WAS THE YEAR SEVEN STOICALLY BLEEDING OVER THE FLOOR BECAUSE SHE THOUGHT A RANDOM CHANGE OF LIFESTYLE CHOICES INTO TAKING UP PARKOUR FOR THE DAY WOULD BE COOL (I thought it was a scrape I wasn’t even gonna look at it let alone go to the nurses office until I was leaving a trail of blood and sudDENLY ITS AN INCH WIDE HOLE IN MY SHIN WHOOPS).  
> Christ did you actually think I was going to refer to Levi as Mr Ackermann NO THANK YOU.


	2. Chapter 2

“Guys.” Eren announced, slamming his hands down onto the table his friends had spread around for their break and making all of them jump, except for Mikasa, following behind him, who either ignored her brother’s actions or had trained her body into not reacting to them. “Halloween on Saturday. We are going trick or treating.”

The declaration was met with mixed reviews, ranging from outright “no”s to a few “sure, whatever”s, all the way to Sasha’s individual “ _ohmygoddyes_ ”. Connie, the first to voice justification for his negative opinion, was quickly swayed by Sasha’s offer to bring back their childhood tradition of wearing matching costumes. Armin took over the attempt to dissuade Eren with a voice of reason.

“Eren, we’re way too old for trick-or-treating.”

“See, I’ve thought about that. I have a plan,” Eren sat down at the table, folding his hands together as Mikasa followed suit, pulling a book from her bag that Marco recognised from their English class and felt a little twinge of guilt at having not started it when she began to flick through. “I think we can agree that Armin and Christa collectively look like they’re about seven,” If Eren heard Armin’s embarrassed splutters he didn’t let it disrupt the flow of his speech. “We can totally make it look like they’re our little siblings!”

Eren looked impossibly pleased with himself. Across the table, Marco could see Ymir, who had been sat a little awkwardly at the end of the table on invite from Christa for the duration of lunch, narrow her eyes in Eren’s direction. Marco liked Eren, they all did, and the idea of hanging out and celebrating Halloween definitely put them all in good spirits, but it was times like this when no one could tell if Eren was joking or completely serious. Probably even Eren didn’t know. Usually at this point it would be left to Mikasa to dissuade her brother, but she stayed silent, regarding her book from the scarf she was tucked up into as she turned a page.

Marco had his own younger sister that he briefly considered offering up for a few seconds, but he was pretty sure she had plans and would steal all of the sweets they had gained by the end of the night for herself if he brought her. Armin continued to argue for his dignity, but it was doing little to chip at the obnoxious grin Eren had plastered over his face. Despite being one of the few people who’s opinion Eren was willing to pay attention to, Armin rarely won any of their bickers.

“Apparently you’ve got halloween plans,” Marco leaned across the table to speak to Christa, at least until Armin and Eren wore themselves out. Jean wasn’t there. He’d made it a few weeks back at school from his suspension before being hit with a fever that was going around. He was frustrated at the amount of schoolwork that he was getting behind with, Marco could tell. Mostly because he kept receiving angry text messages from Jean informing him of such matters. He usually responded with photos of cats. That seemed to help.

Marco had stopped by at Jean’s house on a few occasions to reprise his roll of history homework deliverer, now complete with Maths and biology homework once he’d found out that Sasha and Connie shared the respective classes with Jean, and had to admit that he looked awful, wrapped up in blankets around a steaming mug and barely making it back to the sofa once he’d gotten up to let Marco in.

“Apparently!” Christa responded with her usual soft smile. Knowing Christa she probably didn’t mind Eren’s assumptions that she was free. She was probably thrilled that he thought she could be helpful.

“Why does every boy at this school want to take advantage of you?” Ymir muttered, as much to herself as to Christa but Marco couldn’t help but smile at the slightly protective nature of the statement. Before anyone could respond to Ymir, Sasha leaned across and pulled at Christa’s face, rocking her head from side to side and she spoke in a childish voice.

“Coz she’s so preddy!” A mix of emotions jumped across Ymir’s face, but she’d barely had time to settle on her final choice of what seemed to be humour when a loud cry from the other end of the table interrupted their conversation.

“Eren I am not dressing up as a girl!” Armin had all but thrown himself up from the table, unaware of the staring his outburst had gained him from neighbouring tables dotted about the common room. “Why do I even need to dress up as a girl?”

“You’ll look more like a little kid,” Eren stated as though it were the most reasonable answer he could’ve offered. Armin sighed in an attempt to calm himself and returned to his seat.

“Can’t you just ask that Annie girl you sit next to now?” Armin rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

Marco jumped into the conversation, curious at the girl regularly responsible for both handing out textbooks and terrifying him every he saw her. “Oh what’s she like? She seems a bit- “

”Incredibly terrifying? Yes.” Eren nodded, solemnly, fingers still laced together. “I really hope we get an A. I fear for my safety if we do not.” A light chuckle went through the group, though Marco did wonder if the laugh was perhaps a little subdued due to the belief that Eren could quite likely be speaking the truth. “Okay, final decisions guys?” Eren pointed round the table at each of his friends in turn as the bell rang, each person confirming their potential presence wondering around Eren’s neighbourhood that Saturday. “Yes? Yes? Mikasa’s coming, yes?” Marco confirmed that he shouldn’t be working on Halloween when it was his turn for Eren to point at him. “Yes? And I don’t know you but you’re coming,” Ymir’s only response to the words spoken in her direction was to raise her eyebrows at Christa. “Cool, that’s all of us. Looks like you’re dressing up as a girl Armin.”

“Oh my- no. I am going to class,” Marco couldn’t help his amusement as Armin picked up his bag and stalked away, Eren grinning impishly after him. Mikasa had a little smile to herself as she tucked her book away and gently persuaded Eren to get up and follow her to biology.

“Hey Eren,” Marco had a free period and was dutifully trailing in return to the art department, falling into step with Mikasa and Eren to walk halfway with them. “Would it be okay if I invited Jean?”

“Sure I guess, but he’ll probably say no,” There was the usual hiss of _Eren_ from Mikasa, to which Eren responded with a “What? He never comes to these things.”

“Marco can still ask if he’d like,” Mikasa said tactically.

“Well, I mean, I just wanted to see if you two were still fighting.”

“Pfft,” Eren’s eyes shot upwards quickly. “We’re always fighting. You’re the one he punched in the face.” As ever, Marco didn’t really have a response to that beyond a quick shrug. Deciding that was all the confirmation he was going to get, he waved goodbye and disappeared away to his art classroom.

 

The first time he managed to build up the strength to crawl out of bed for an extended period of time, Jean was already one of a few people clustered outside the history classroom when Marco arrived for their next class together, despite him having left the art department a little earlier than he would do normally before he threw his sketchbook into the kiln room to watch it burn. He found Jean still looking awful and coughing over everyone as he sat crossed legged on the with a couple of other people. Marco hovered awkwardly for a moment, not knowing whether it would be okay for him to join them or not when Reiner spotted him and waved him over, speaking before he could stop to ask Jean how he was doing. Though the current coughing fit more than likely answered that question.

“Hey, Marco. Give me your opinion on something,” the third member of their group groaned at Reiner’s words, and from his new vantage point Marco was able to recognise the voice as coming from Connie. The fourth member was curled up on the floor across from Connie a little more awkwardly due to the excess of limbs he was graced with, but beyond that Marco didn’t know much about him aside from his name being Bertholdt, though Reiner had been encouraging everyone to refer to him as Bert for short. Marco greeted Jean, not doing a very good job at hiding his concern about being quizzed by a near stranger, receiving a look that just made Jean look like he was very, very tired of people in return. He didn’t look like he was about to punch anyone though, which was probably a good thing. Marco’s bruising was only just beginning to heal to a level where he was comfortable being seen in public. “Sasha and Connie, they’re dating aren’t they?”

“Um, no- I don’t know. I thought you guys were just friends?”

“ _Yes_!” Connie gestured about wildly with his hands, clearly at the end of his tether.

“No I mean like, they are dating,” Connie breathed in deeply through his nose at Reiner’s words, resting his head in his agitated hands once again “they just don’t _know_ that they’re dating.”

“No, no we are _not_.”

“You’re wearing matching outfits to halloween, you’re basically married.”

“For god’s sake, _matching costumes does not_ -”

“Ooh Connie, are you guys talking about Halloween costumes?” they all jumped a little as Sasha popped up behind Reiner’s shoulder, Connie’s complexion turning a little grey as she plopped down next to him, sitting on her school bag. “Cause I think I’ve settled on a theme for us: The garden vegetable.”

Connie didn’t even turn to look at her as he responded with a firm “No.”

“Um, that reminds me, actually.” Marco turned to talk to Jean over Sasha’s insisting that carrots were very in style. It was a very convincing argument. Connie was holding his ground but he would probably cave halfway through the class. “Do you have plans on Halloween?” His question was quickly answered by an intense thirty second coughing fit. “Oh, and you look horrific by the way.”

“Thank you. And at this rate I imagine it’ll be being spent seeing if I can hack up my lungs to serve as overly authentic halloween food.”

Marco couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose at the particularly disgusting mental image, and could only think to warn Jean to make sure he invested in a good serving plate if the occasion did arise. “If it doesn’t though,” he added, attempting to sound off-hand for God only knows why “and you’re up for it, Eren’s coerced us into dressing up and going trick or treating. I mean you don’t have to or anything, just it’d be nice to see you there.” He took what Eren had said about Jean not going out with them into consideration, offering Jean a free pass to excuse himself, and couldn’t help but notice the slight tensing around Jean’s eyes as Eren’s name was mentioned.

He told Jean the name of the neighbourhood upon being questioned about it, attempting to list coherent directions when the expression Jean’s face pulled into showed that he clearly had no clue where Marco was talking about.

“Just-” Jean started talking around another coughing fit just as Levi flung open the door to the history classroom. Marco offered him a hand up when it looked like the coughing had weakened him too much to stand. Jean kindly took the offered hand with the arm that he hadn’t been coughing into. “Just give me an address and we can see if I get there.” He managed to say eventually, confirming his presence for the following Saturday.

“If you could maybe not punch Eren in the face that would be fantastic.”

Jean eyed the paling bruises still covering most of Marco’s cheek gingerly, but softly responded “I won’t need to if you’re around,” as he sat. Marco was about to defend his honour as more than just a human shield but Jean sneezed loudly before he got the chance.

“I’ll dress up as Jekyll and Hyde if you go as a biohazard patient,” Marco’s quip was rewarded with an amused scoff before a blackboard wiper was thrown at a wall to symbolise the beginning of the lesson and Eren screamed something about the school not even owning any blackboards in a more frustrated tone than was probably necessary. But, to be fair, the block had flown dangerously close by to his head.

 

With nothing but a cape and a thin shirt to stave off the winter chill that had suddenly crept up on the end of October Marco was beginning to regret his decision to go sweet hunting with his friends. Perhaps if the outing had reaped so far more benefits, namely in chocolate form, then morale wouldn’t be dropping quite so low. But they were onto perhaps the seventh house of doubtful glances and tight expressions and a sweet looking old lady was outright refusing to give Eren anything, no matter how many times he tried to convince her he was younger than he looked.

Jean was late, leaving Marco- having been pressured by the others to abandon the agreed meeting place so they could begin their journey- to text him step by step where they were going. Partially it was an excuse to duck his head away from the awkward encounters each house was providing. Sasha and Connie hadn’t shown up yet, but that was typical of those two. They would show up at some point, finding the group randomly luck than any form of planning. Jean had made it as far as reaching the correct neighbourhood but beyond that it was pretty accurate to say he was lost and confused by everything he saw, complaining that it all looked the same and no he could not “send a landmark” because “there isn’t anything remotely distinguishable in this neighbourhood.”

**To Jean**

**I’m sorry we don’t hang out in your fancy neighbourhood with it’s Georgian Architecture and funky allotments.**

**To Marco**

**you should be.**

**To Marco they’re super funky.**

**To Marco**

**“hey baby you wanna come hang out at my funky allotment this halloween?”**

**To Jean**

**No.**

**To Marco**

**:(**

“We need Levi,” Eren sulked, the old lady smiling at everyone in the group who wasn’t Eren as they left her front garden to trail back to the main road away from the cul-de-sac where they’d begun their pilgrimage. “He’s so short, they’d never even suspec-”

“Finish that sentence, Jaeger.” A steely voice spoke from behind Eren’s shoulder, making even Mikasa jump.

“Oohhhhh gawdddddd,” Eren winced, considerably greyer in complexion than a moment before. Marco took a step back, the turn of events making him rapidly rethink Jean’s gardening habits.

“HOW DID YOU FIND ME,” Eren was wailing from behind Mikasa, looking a little annoyed by the position of human shield she was being held in against their teacher.

“THIS IS MY HOME YOU ARE RUINING THE GRASS OF,” Somehow seeing their teacher in an over sized sweater waving a small bag of groceries aggressively in Eren’s face was more terrifying than his average classroom set up.

**To Jean**

**There has been a new development and I would like to leave. Where are you?**

**To Marco**

**?**

**To Marco**

**i found the scary people from class**

**To Jean**

**Annie’s here?**

**To Marco**

**Yes but also the scary blonde dude and the scarier girl with freckles**

**To Jean**

**Ymir + Reiner?**

**To Marco**

**probably**

**To Jean**

**Right, okay. Ask them where you are.**

**To Marco**

**no I’ll look stupid and then they’ll beat me up for being stupid**

**To Jean**

**Ymir was pretty impressed with your handiwork on my eye, maybe you’re intimidating to them?**

**To Marco**

**they have a friend who is genuinely a foot taller than me**

**To Jean**

**And that friend’s name is Bertholdt.**

**To Marco**

**apparently I’m outside a laundrette**

**To Jean**

**K, I’ll come find you, Eren is scaring the locals.Or rather, being scared by them.**

**To Marco**

**?**

Reasoning that finding Jean and explaining the situation would not only be faster but also safer, considering the ever nearing likelihood of Levi disappearing into his house to find various kitchen implements he could use to threaten Eren with, Marco leaned over to Christa to inform her that he had an escape route for them. Unfortunately, he could do nothing for Armin and Mikasa, both of whom Eren had trapped within an iron grip to defend his honour. Or more than likely his body.

Once they’d managed to free themselves from the terror of Hell itself, it only took maybe a ten minute walk to find the laundrette, located between the only takeaway and small corner shop the area had to boast, with Jean stood outside looking uncomfortably surrounded by more people than originally anticipated.

“They had more allies,” he muttered once Marco and Christa arrived “I thought I was safe but they were hidden away in the shop, waiting to ambush me with their cheap sweets and primark onesies.”

In response, a still wrapped starburst flew through the air and bounced off of Jean’s hair. The culprit- Sasha, dressed indeed in a onesie, having apparently managed to agree with Connie on the theme of farm animals- smiled around a mouthful of chewy sweets. “He said he didn’t like the purple ones,” was all she said by way of explanation.

“Christa you look cute as hell, unless Jaeger made you wear that, in which case I will gladly punch him for you,” Ymir had sauntered over to join the conversation, the timing of her words in regrd to Christa's witch costume conveniently distracting Jean from the murderous look he was directing at Sasha. Probably Levi wouldn’t be impressed if they started a costumed food fight this close to his home.

“You see, that’s how it works Jean. You punch _other people_ for your friends. You can’t just skip a step and punch your friends,” the look Jean gave him seemed to still be stuck between maintaining his death glare against Sasha’s chirpy grin and a look that revealed he’d also noticed that that was the first time Marco had referred to the two of them as friends.

“The hell I can’t,” Jean muttered as he pulled some form of chocolate bar from the bag Christa was carrying, flinging it at a yelping Sasha.

“Hey look everybody, Eren is here now,” Christa spoke clearly to interrupt the sugar based food battle rapidly developing, giving Connie and Marco the chance to subtly pull the friends they were respectively responsible for away.

“Oh, you’re alive?” At the raising of Jean’s eyebrows Marco realised he hadn’t explained their recent near death experience and at his quick “We found Levi,” the confusion immediately lifted from Jean’s face.

The expression Eren wore spoke volumes. He’d _seen_ things. “He threw a broom at me. He actually went, and found a _broom_ , and then he _threw_ it at me. I’m pretty sure I could get him fired for that, but I _can_ ’t, because then Mikasa would _yell_ at me, because _my parents_ had to go and adopt the _only_ child who’s only living relative is SATAN HIMSELF.”

Mikasa didn’t respond, only smiling and looking amused at her brother as his voice raised with every word of his rant.

“You did wave a sword at him.”

“It’s a _plastic sword_ , Armin, it’s part of my _costume_ , which is _NOT REAL_ ,” with that Eren threw himself and the sword at Armin, who knew Eren well enough to know when to run.

Christa sighed a little, watching Armin attempt to hide behind Bertholdt’s lanky form. “Speaking of costumes,” She turned to poke Ymir, the cheery tone back to her voice already. “What is this? Where’s your costume?”

“This is my halloween hoodie,” Ymir waved down at the skeleton printed over her otherwise plain black jumper. “It’s better than cat ears over there,” She said at the unimpressed expression on Christa’s face, pointing to Jean with her thumb, who, Marco suddenly realised on inspection, was in fact wearing a cat ear headband.

Jean’s face immediately flared up, the blush visible despite the early darkness of the cold October night, his only defense being a mutter of “My mum made me wear them.”

Marco choked on the gummy worm Christa had just fed him.

The scowl on Jean’s face was strong enough to push Marco out from the stupor of his laughter, but also just seemed to make the whole situation funnier. “Well I didn’t know Dracula had freckles,” he said defensively, despite knowing that Marco was laughing because he had met Jean’s mother and had no doubts in his mind that she _had_ made Jean wear the headband.

“Oh- oh yeah,” he said between bouts of laughter. “Vampires are really pale, aren’t they? So they get freckles super easily. I’ve been this authentic,” he gestured down to the vampire costume he’d adopted for the evening “and you couldn’t even be bothered to draw whiskers on your face?”

In the corner of his eye he could see Sasha’s head snap around, Annie tensing as Sasha muttered something to her behind a gloved hand, but Marco didn’t even have time to turn and look before they’d sprung into action, Annie launching herself at Jean’s neck and holding him in place with iron strength as Sasha produced a permanent marker from god only knew where.

“What the- don’t just- Marco fucking help!” Jean spluttered against his captors to no avail. Marco took a step back, watching Jean struggle. He was doing his best to not go down without a fight, and Marco did want to help, but girls were apparently very scary. Even with Annie’s disproportionate strength, Jean strained and fought with all his might and Sasha was struggling to keep pen to cheek long enough to make anything more than a few dots. Marco wondered if Jean would agree to join his freckled vampire brigade. He could be a vampire cat. A singly cheeked freckled vampire cat.

Jean bucked, sending both girls flying somewhat, just about managing to keep their grips, and Sasha swore gracelessly as the pen flew from her grasp, landing right at Marco’s feet. He picked it up, looking up to see the threesome frozen, looking at him with simultaneous grins spanning from pleading to threatening. _Oh no_.

“Marco- Marco you have to-”

“Marco. Draw the cat whiskers,” Annie spoke with complete calm from behind Jean’s neck, but somehow that was more threatening than if she’d been aggressive.

“Don’t do it Marco!” Jean pleaded, sandwiched between the two tiny women.

“Marco! Marco! Marco!” Sasha began chanting from her new position of clamping Jean’s arm in place, jumping up and down on the spot and causing the other two to flop about in time to her chants. Marco glanced down at the pen for a second, thinking over his loyalties. He smiled at the group apologetically.

“Guys come on, get off him.”

Both girls groaned, Sasha a tad more theatrically, ending up halfway on the floor, but both relented their hold. Jean’s form gradually relaxed as his attackers moved away, turning to Marco once they were far away enough for him to feel safe.

“God. Can’t believe I have to- woah!” Jean lashed out furiously, but it was too late, an offending single whisker was already drawn in. Marco could hear a few cheers from about the group, likely having had their attention grabbed by the two aggressive females having used Jean as a climbing frame slash whiteboard. The cheering provided enough of a distraction for Marco to draw in another two whiskers, trying his best to connect the dots left behind by Sasha while Jean grumbled about his choice of friends- though he didn’t resist as Marco moved to the next cheek. _He probably figures it’s better to at least have matching cheeks_ , Marco reasoned.

“How come you let him do it?” Sasha pouted. Jean glared in response.

“Because he’s not an annoying brat like some people.”

Marco muttered under his breath that Jean would be hard pressed to turn him down after punching him in the face, earning himself a snort of laughter from Annie.

“Here,” he passed over his phone flicked onto selfie mode once he was done with his masterpiece, having even coloured in the tip of Jean’s nose for good measure. Marco watched him appraise himself in the dim light of the screen, noticing the hint of pink over his cheeks. _Is he really that embarrassed over a few whiskers? Because that’s kind of cute. But also really dumb_.

Marco leant over Jean’s shoulder, smiling quickly and shooting his hand up to press the shutter button on the front of his phone. Jean blinked in surprise as the screen flickered and glared across at Marco’s sheepish grin.“If you’re gonna do that at least let me take a nice one,” he muttered.

“Sorry,” Marco smiled and took the phone from Jean’s grip, allowing Jean time to pick an expression that wasn’t a sneer or a scowl. After taking a photo that Jean would allow Marco opened the camera roll and flicked back to the original picture. “This ones better. You look like a confused horse in this one.”

Eventually after maybe another hour of wondering around the neighbourhood demanding sugar from people’s doors, more of the group were shivering from the cold than not, and Christa offered her home for the group to warm up and get started on their collected pool of sweets as she lived reasonably close. Also, her house was huge.

Somebody put A Nightmare Before Christmas on as soon as they arrived, leading to an impromptu group recital of _This is Halloween_ and Christa passed around a bowl to collect the snacks, more of them admittedly having been bought from the shop than gifted from houses around the area. Sasha produced an entire cake from seemingly thin air but was quickly denied access to a knife from Connie who didn’t deem her responsible enough to cut it up. Her retaliation was swift and involved frosting and Connie’s eyebrow, and during their quick battle that nearly ruined one of the worryingly antique looking sofa’s decorating Christa’s living room it was decided that neither of them were allowed to be accountable for the cake and Annie disappeared away with it for a few moments before returning with several neatly carved slices of cake.

Marco had never seen Jean look so uncomfortable, wedged in between Bertholdt and Reiner on what seemed to be the “outsider” sofa, Annie and Ymir apparently being given a free pass on their relative novelty to the group due to their friendships with Sasha and Christa respectively, Sasha having mentioned briefly that she and Annie knew each other from playing on the same football team. Ymir probably would have been hidden away shyly in the corner in the same way Jean was attempting had she not already visited Christa’s home, now acting in exactly the opposite way by attempting to display her confidence in the surrounding area by picking out drinks and snacks for herself from various cupboards.

Other than Jean, the most awkward person in the room was easily Bertholdt, curled into a corner and seemingly trying to make himself look smaller than the six foot whatever he was. Reiner was however content to spend the evening commenting on Sasha and Connie’s antics, pointing out to Connie personally how couple-like the two were acting through the lightest innuendos he could, to his credit making sure Sasha didn’t hear anything suspicious as she ran about distracted by a near even balance of stuffing her face and photographing any and all activities going on in the house.

The point when Connie eventually threw his arms up into the air in frustration and stalked out of the room didn’t seem to bother Reiner too much, sharing a quick look of confusion to Sasha as though to imply he didn’t know he was the cause of Connie’s actions before turning his attention immediately to Jean, pinned in place as he was with no way of escape. At the brash words “so Jean, how’s your love life going?” Jean’s eyes flicked up to Marco’s with possibly more panic in his eyes than when he’d ran away after hitting him, silently begin him for help.

“Um, Jean,” Marco said, desperately trying to think of a topic that they had in common that would distract Reiner. “Have you done the history homework?” The panic did seem to be lifting from Jean’s eyes but it was rapidly being replaced with something purely dumbfounded at Marco’s expense

“What.”

Well, Marco had a story now, and he was going to stick to it. “You know, the history homework. That we got. Did- did you do it?” Okay no, this was the worst distraction in the history of distractions.

“No. No I did not.”

“Oh, me neither,” he could’ve left the distraction there to die a dignified death. Maybe Reiner was confused enough by now and had forgotten what was happening. Maybe Jean had had enough time to think of his own topic changer. But the silence stretched on for a beat of silence too long for Marco to be comfortable with it and he blurted out a panicked “we could go talk about history homework in the kitchen.”

“We could Marco. We could.”

“Cool. Lets go sit in the kitchen then. And talk about history”

“Yeah. Lets do that Marco.” Jean nodded patronisingly, the look in his eyes letting Marco know how awkward they were being, stubbornly not saying anything until they had left the living room. “Well that was probably the most awkward way we could have vacated the situation.”

“Hey. We vacated it, did we not?” Marco argued as they walked through to the empty kitchen, offering Jean a drink as he got his own. “You wanna go sit outside?” Marco offered “Christa’s got a really nice garden. That we won’t be able to see because its night time.”

“You’re selling it to me.”

“We can imagine it,” Jean gave a half shrug and a nod at his response, standing as Marco did and following him out to sit instead on the dark patio. “There’s a bush there,” Marco pointed out to the darkness factually. “And over there is a fence, with flowers, except they’re all dead because it’s nearly winter,” Jean nodded along, feigning fascination to Marco’s tour guide like explanation “and waaaay down at the bottom of the garden there’s even a swing!”

“Amazing,” Jean shook his head as though truly amazed “Who knew a simple garden could hold so much wonder.” Marco elbowed him in the ribs. As they sat silently in the cold for a little, Marco slowly beginning to regret not picking up a jumper or coat or even a blanket as he stared into the inky blankness of the area slightly to the left of where the swing should be. Jean didn’t seem to mind the cold, which was annoying because he was kind of skinny and Marco was pretty sure that skinnier people were supposed to get colder easier. “That Reiner guy is really over friendly.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s only funny when it’s not you.”

“Least he’s nice. Didn’t make me want to punch him at least,” the look Jean flicked up at him was amused to say the least, and Marco caught his implication easily.

“Well excuse me, I’ll remember you like people who pry into your personal life next time I don’t want to get punched in the face.”

“Next time you don’t want to get punched in the face you could avoid walking into the flight path of someone’s fist.”

Marco opened his mouth quickly to retaliate but ended up quickly closing it with a smile as Jean grinned at him “fair enough.”

“I feel like this is the part of the horror film where the serial killer turns up,” Jean spoke softly, but it was sudden enough that Marco looked up at the garden quickly to scout out if there was anyone in fact approaching the two of them. “I was kidding, doofus.”

“Had there been a murderous clown watching us you would have thanked me.”

“Why specifically a clown?”

“I’m not a huge clown fan.”

“Oh,” Jean didn’t argue. He found that not many people called him out on his completely rational fear of clowns. “I guess… I mean I really don’t like heights. Which sucks because half my family lives in Europe and we keep visiting them.”

“D’you take those pills that make you go all weird and chill?”

“Sometimes,” Jean shot him another one of those quick grins.

They sat silently for a moment, interrupted only by Sasha popping her head out of the door and asking if they’d seen where Connie had gone. Neither of them had noticed and she wandered away again, Marco sure that the internal tracking device the friends seemed to have for one another would rejoin them once again soon.

“We could go in again now if you like,” Jean said, regarding Marco’s shivering form in his cape “I’m sure that’s long enough to have talked about history.”

They returned to the living room in time for the ending of the film, Jean joining Marco on the floor as Bertholdt had taken the opportunity of Jean’s absence to spread himself across a more appropriate space for his length. Sasha was indeed soon reunited with Connie, pulling him along into the living room and attempting to push an entire cookie into his mouth simultaneously. She all but dropped him when she saw Jean and Marco again, apparently realising that she hadn’t gotten a photo of the two of them yet, leaving Connie to choke on his cookie. Luckily Reiner was there to pat him on the back, but Marco couldn’t really tell if it was to ease his cookie related troubles or if he thought Connie needed comforting after being left alone by Sasha. Either way the pats were definitely firm enough to dislodge the chunk of cookie from Connie’s throat.

“Marco, bite his neck,” Sasha waved her arms about to guide the two of them into a position she liked, grinning at the expressions they were giving her.

“What.”

“For the photo, dolt-face.” Sasha Braus was probably the only person in the room who could have not only gotten away with using the words ‘dolt-face’ to describe Jean Kirschtein but also been given a lighter expression from him after the words had been spoken. Maybe Christa stood a chance, if she could bring herself to use words that were in anyway insulting.

“Oh. Don’t actually bite me though,” Jean actually turned to give Marco a fixed stare, earning him a narrow eyed look in response.

“Well I might now.” He said, dryly, but complied with Sasha’s orders, Jean even mocking a look of terror for the sake of the photo, both falling into light giggling once the photo was taken. Marco’s previous pose of aiming his fake fangs towards Jean’s throat meant he had to use the other's back to support himself, not caring at that point if Jean shoved him off but still a little pleased when he didn’t seem to mind the added weight nonetheless.

Marco was pretty sure Jean had enjoyed himself- despite how he and Eren had steadily ignored all evening, not interacting much beyond a few exchanges of cool looks here and there- even accepting a brief hug from Marco at the end of the evening just before he piled into the back of Christa’s mother’s car with a few of the others for a lift home.

He logged into Facebook as soon as he arrived home, knowing that Sasha would have immediately uploaded her photos from the evening and flicked through them. There were a few of the group stood around the neighbourhood shops from earlier on in the evening, a few a little blurry and under exposed due to the dark lighting, and a series of Connie and Sasha posing in her bedroom, possibly explaining why they’d been late, at the start of the album. Connie had changed his profile picture to a photo of himself taking a selfie with Sasha grinning around a whole piece of cake. Reiner had been the first to like it, following with a series of comments informing Connie of how nice he thought the photo was, somehow including quite an impressive number of synonyms for the word “dating”. Flicking through the photos reminded Marco of just how good an eye for composition Sasha had, often utilising her friends costume in the photos. Christa and her witch costume probably took up most of the album, Ymir often in the background until Sasha had apparently insisted she join the foreground, broken up intermittently with a few of Armin, Eren and Mikasa in their pirate themed costume. Marco’s favourites were probably of Annie, having been in some kind of dead bride get up, draped over Christa’s old fashioned stairs and edited to a creepy perfection. He smiled at the one of Jean and himself, liking it before realising there was another, Sasha having taken a quick shot of the two of them laughing. Before he could decide against it, he commented a quick “I like this one”, complete with a smiley face, and sent the photos he and Jean had taken for Sasha to upload to the album.

No sooner had the upload finished did Reiner like and comment on the photos, the single word ‘cute’ making Marco think of his earlier comments on Connie’s picture enough to bring a blush to his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's a little rushed, I wanted to get it done for Halloween but was tragically a day late. I'm doing nano this year so I probably wont be able to update this for a little while, but I'm hoping to have a chapter done over Christmas :)


End file.
